InterestsMy main research concerns the naturalization of metaphysics — that is, the process of making metaphysics accountable to science. I say both what that involves and why we should do it. I identify a class of metaphysical theory I call free range metaphysics and spell out its epistemic failures (see my article "Keep the Chickens Cooped"). On my positive conception of naturalized metaphysics, metaphysics conscientiously and painstakingly engages with the data, theories, theoretical interpretations, and practices of science. I argue that such a metaphysics is epistemically superior to the free range alternative.
I also have published papers on the prospects for naturalizing theories of ground (see my "Naturalizing Grounding") and on Quine's apparent inconsistency regarding the rational revisability of logic ("Resolving Quine's Conflict"). Finally, I have ongoing projects pertaining to the possibility of accommodating causation in an eliminative ontic structural realist framework, the epistemic infrastructure required for restricted forms of naturalism, as well as applications of grounding to physicalism. |
Articles and Chapters"Physicalism" (forthcoming). Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. Ed. Michael Raven.
"Naturalizing Grounding: How Theories of Ground Can Engage Science" (2018). Philosophy Compass.
"Keep the Chickens Cooped: The Epistemic Inadequacy of Free Range Metaphysics" (2017). Synthese. 1-21.
“Resolving Quine’s Conflict: A Neo-Quinean View of the Rational Revisability of Logic” (2017). Australasian Journal of Logic (14:1). 30-45.
Other Contributions“Each Kuhn Mutually Incommensurable” (2018). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 6: 1-7. <https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3XM>
"What's Metaphysics All About?" (2017). The Institute of Art and Ideas. <iainews.iai.tv/articles/what-is-metaphysics-all-about-auid-870?access=ALL> |
